Chemical sensing by nonequilibrium cooperative receptors

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that nonequilibrium cooperative receptor systems can optimize sensory gain without compromising the signal-to-noise ratio, revealing new design principles for biological sensors.

Contribution

It shows that energy dissipation in nonequilibrium systems cannot bypass the fundamental gain-noise tradeoff, but 2D-coupled receptors can maximize SNR for high-gain sensing.

Findings

Nonequilibrium processes do not improve SNR beyond independent receptors.

2D-coupled receptors maximize SNR at high gain.

Energy dissipation cannot circumvent the gain-noise tradeoff.

Abstract

Cooperativity arising from local interactions in equilibrium receptor systems provides gain, but does not increase sensory performance, as measured by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) due to a fundamental tradeoff between gain and intrinsic noise. Here we allow sensing to be a nonequilibrium process and show that energy dissipation cannot circumvent the fundamental tradeoff, so that SNR is still optimal for independent receptors. For systems requiring high gain, nonequilibrium 2D-coupled receptors maximize SNR, revealing a new design principle for biological sensors.